Easy, Breezy, Beautiful... Ellen?

Ellen Degeneres is the new face of Covergirl. I was surprised when I heard the news... Ellen isn't exactly what comes to mind when you think "cosmetic spokewoman". As a co-worker put it, she's a got the uh, goober thing going on. On the other hand, she looks radiant and comfortable in the ad, so maybe it won't matter to consumers that she routinely looks as though she scorns makeup (and raided the menswear department)? My opinion of her suitability as a "face" has nothing to do with her sexual orientation. I think Portia Di Rossi would be an effective and intuitive choice.

When you contrast Degeneres with other cosmetic leading ladies, the difference is obvious. Consider the (still) stunning Cindy Crawford in this Revlon ad. Glamor, distilled. Is Degeneres really what the average Covergirl purchaser aspires to look like? Is the new anti-makeup makeup ad something that will stick around? Personally, I'd rather see Halle Berry or Drew Barrymore in the cosmetics aisle. Where do you draw the line on the issue of a celebrity who who simply isn't suited to sell a product? The incongruity of Ellen fronting Covergirl makes me twitch.

I'm just sayin'.

Advertising Literature (an oxymoron?)

After seeing a couple of "Great Ad Books" lists on sites around town I decided to make my own, but with a twist. These are not books I have read, but rather recommendations that I have collected which look good enough to crack open this summer when I'll only be working 40 hours/week. The list of anticipated ad/design books as it stands now:

• Where the Suckers Moon by Randall Rothenberg. The excerpt I read on Amazon was biting and informative.

• Underdog Advertising by Paul Flowers because it is written by a Dallas ad-man! It's all in the family.

• Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. A friend of mine and fellow marketing student raved about this)

• All Marketers Are Liars by Seth Godin because it's about time I gave Godin some money for all the free advice I get from his blog)

• The Happy Soul Industry by Steffan Postaer. The cover is cute as pie. YES, I judge books by their covers. Sometimes.
  

• Good to Great by Jim Collins. A classic on everyone's shelf.

• Blink: the power of thinking without thinking by Malcom Gladwell. I would like to be able to consciously influence people subconsciously. I hope that's what this book is about.

• E by Matt Beaumont because it's a novel! About advertising! What I mean is, if I can be entertained while learning I'll come back every time. Teachers of the world, take note.

What are your favorite ad books? What are the books on any subject that changed you?

To be continued....

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

I'd like to bring to your attention two ads that I recently discovered (although neither of them were recently created) and which I think exemplify some of the best and worst of what marketing can be and do. The bad news first: this, which manages to offend on quite a few levels. The ad (hailing from Singapore) is apparently selling skin-whitening tablets. Aside from the, well, blatant sexism of the tagline, I find the obsession with skin-whitening very off-putting. Has this always existed, and it's just another of my blessed blind-spots? Anyway, this is an example of What Not To Do--market a bad product with worse copy.
Riding like a white knight to rescue advertising's reputation is the recent campaign by Ogilvy New York for Fage Total. You can read the New York Times' description of the situation here. Ogilvy has enlisted the help of some luxurious co-conspirators to make very effective ads: on one side of the magazine is a traditional ad featuring jewelry or a watch and the facing page is printed to give the impression that there is an impression made in yogurt! Simple, visceral, intriguing. Thank goodness someone is doing such work in a time where people are daily using the poor economic situation to justify lazy/cowardly creative. Bravissimo, Ogilvy.

Texas Monthly Talks

"...There are people who say, 'in a bad economy, that's the best time to build.'"

Check out Texas Monthly's interview with native Texas ad-man Roy Spence of GSD&M. Spence makes some good points, most notably distilling any business down to its raison d'etre: to fulfill a need.

EA Adapts Great!Lit for the Gaming Screen

It certainly took them long enough. Can EA really be the first to have the idea of turning the Divine Comedy into a video game? Nine circles of Hell with Satan as the final adversary? Three-headed dogs, zombies and religious symbolism? It practically begs to be adapted! And EA seems to have done a creative job. The literature student in me cheered when the announcement trailer began with the first lines of Dante's Inferno, but the pseudo-female Virgil was a departure from the text ( I suppose they felt it was not that much a change to insert a guardian angel in the place of one of the greatest classical poets?) and Cerberus looks bizarrely cartoon-ish. The trailer progresses with what looks like a rollicking good time. The ad has great visuals--they owe quite a bit to the pioneering visual style of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I guess everyone does these days)--but I wonder how they interpret some of the more, shall we say, contested sins? I can imagine quite a dinner-table conversation sparked by little Johnnie inquiring why the homosexuals are doomed to wander a burning desert in the seventh circle of Hell for all eternity. Anyway, it looks like agency G-Net has done right by EA, at least in terms of eye-popping presentation. Maybe Dante's Inferno will one day rate a sequel, but I'm not holding my breath for a game staged in the nine circles of the Paradiso.

...and now for something Completely Different.

Two differing opinions of advertising.

"Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill pail." Thank you, George Orwell (for more of this sentiment go here.)

"Advertising is a career for the strong of mind and spirit, and for those who think winning should occur swiftly and without great ceremony."
That's from Jo Muse, courtesy of AdAge.com

Cadbury FTW

In 2007 Fallon London attracted attention with their creation of a Cadbury chocolates ad that featured a gorilla drumming to Phil Collins' "Air Tonight", and which left some people scratching their heads. What, audiences asked, does a primate rocking out on a drum-set have to do with chocolate? I think the ad is unarguably striking and really more effective than one might initially think. The purple walls behind the gorilla exactly match the purple of Cadbury's packaging, and the entire feeling of the spot (the music, gorilla's expression) definitely correspond to the final tagline "A glass and a half full of joy". The commercial was undoubtedly successful, spawning spoofs and a Facebook page as well as winning awards and upping chocolate sales. All was right with the world.

Fallon has done it again with their new ad for Cadbury, posted above. The ad world is all a-twitter (in every sense of the world) with speculation as to whether this one will prove as popular as the ubiquitous gorilla. Fallon definitely seems to have mastered the genre of ads that are effective entertainment but do not necessarily relate to the product except in the most abstract way. I am a definite fan of the new spot (even if the kids' performance lacks some of the gorilla's spontaneity) and will be interested to see what Fallon's Juan Cabral tries his hand at next.